Samson, I Barely Knew You

By Al Horn

I am a regular reader of the daily newspaper. I may not agree with all the editorials, but I read almost every word I can. Today, I am not taking the editors or the columnist they carry to task. It's the ads I have been seeing for hair removal. Grab the everyday or sports section and just look for yourself.

When these ads first started popping up I didn't pay them much attention. After all, women have been trying to remove what they considered to be unsightly hair for ages. Then as more of these promotions would appear, they would be heralding the ability to remove men's unsightly hair. I smiled at the first such offer. As more and more businesses claimed to be able to permanently remove hair from the human body, I heard distant claxons sounding in the back of my mind. Whose idea was this?

I didn't make up the rules of what is considered sightly or unsightly. Here lately, I wonder who is defining the rules. When I asked many of the employees where I work to weigh in with their opinions they were almost equally divided. Those who went with hairless held a slight advantage. A small percentage was strongly poised in one direction or the other. Most of the rest had small reasons for their choices, making me wonder if they could be swayed the other way based on circumstances. Those with the strongest opinions were women.

Some said that aside from what rested on a man's scalp, they preferred to touch nothing but skin when they came into contact with a member of the opposite sex. Others seemed to liken their men to 'cuddly bears'. Personally, I don't see what the obsession is. When I was young and could hardly get fuzz to grow on my face much less on my chest, I would probably have agreed that hairless was better. Now that my pate is thinning, I'm glad for all the hair I have, regardless of where it cares to grow.

Regardless of wither women prefer Adonis' or a Paul Bunion type, it still boils down to men catering to the other sex. Do men go in for hair removal because that is how they want to see themselves or because certain women have stated a preference? Let's face it, us guys will do almost anything to please those we are attracted to. Thanks to today's technology, we can do things like this quickly and almost painlessly; in four easy payments.

Personally, I will keep all my hair. I may trim the sides to match what little still grows on top. The rest will always stay in various lengths. My wife seems to find my fur acceptable. If anything ever happened to her I wouldn't change anything. At present, three out of every seven women have indicated that I would pass on the question of body hair. I feel sorry for the guys that can't make up their minds. Worse yet, I feel sorry for the guys that have opted for permanent removal. For most men, there are medicines that will keep the hair they have on top of their crowns. For others, it won't matter what they do, when it's gone it's gone.

I have always said that technology has its pluses as well as it's minuses. Imagine if this technology had been available thousands of years ago. I can almost hear what one woman in particular would have said. "Hey, Samson, have I got something to show you!"